Summary: | LIGHT RHYTHMS is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Steiner is interested in film's capacity to invigorate everyday sight, to alert viewers to the simple, magical visual pleasures available in nearly any circumstance. The film is divided into sequences that focus on specific kinds of imagery in and around ocean surf. --SCOTT MACDONALD Educated at Dartmouth, Ralph Steiner became a successful commercial and much honored fine art photographer. He made perhaps the first American abstract film, "H2O" (1929), following it with other experiments, some political in nature, some in Hollywood. Steiner also photographed with Paul Strand "The Plow That Broke the Plains" (1936) and co-directed and photographed "The City" (1939) with Willard Van Dyke and Henwar Rodakiewicz. --ROBERT A. HALLERIn the mid-1920s, Marc Blitzstein continued his classical music training with Schoenberg in Berlin, and in Paris with N. Boulanger. His film scores for "Hände" (1927) and "Surf and Seaweed" (1931) were composed in close collaboration with the filmmakers. He also worked on "Valley Town" (1940) and "Native Land" (1937-41). -JENNIFER WILD 35mm 1.33:1 black and white with silent with music 18fps 13:34 minutes. Music: Marc Blitzstein, realized by Eric Beheim.
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